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Sunday, April 10, 2016

The Nantucket sea serpent hoax of 1937

In the summer of 1937, stories started appearing in the local papers of Nantucket carrying photographs of giant footprints found on a local beach. With the region of New England’s long history of sea-serpent sightings, rumors quickly began to circulate reporting that, at last, one of the elusive creatures had come ashore. Copies of the photographs were even sent for scientific analysis, though Dr. W. Reid Blair, director of the New York Zoological Society, was skeptical :

“No marine mammal could have left the tracks as they do not move so much on their flippers as they do on their second joint and on their bellies. Evidence of their passage would be seen on the beach only in a slight indentation. As for a land mammal, there is nothing on Nantucket Island that could leave such large tracks“.